Snowflake challenge '26, 2: a stupid ramble

[toothpastepancake]

snowflake_challenge : Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want! 

Oh man! I don't know about this one. 

There's a moment in The Orville where Gordon talks about getting a pet cat for the bridge, and this is something I would have L O V E D to see!! Because of that line, I have given many of my starship bridge officer OCs bridge pals now. For example my favorite OC Abstract Merp has a tortoise on the bridge! I actually don't know which of my fandoms have canonical pets...? Cliff Steele got to pet a cat once, too bad he couldn't feel its fur. 

I will say one thing I have enjoyed about the Palia updates is the animal husbandry feature. I don't enjoy that they get unhappy so easily (or did for me at least) and so quickly, but I gotta say I am really enjoying having these little funny chickens running around that I get to give silly names to and get resources from. My first pekis (Palia chickens basically) were named Charly Burke and Kaylon Primary after The Orville characters. And you can use your animals as cosmetic pets too, so they can follow you around outside of the ranch :')

Another thing I love about Palia is the premium store pets. I have... One, a lovecore themed dragon..

 
(ID: a lavender colored dragon like creature with pink bows on its horns, white wings, and a heart shape necklace on its chest. end. )

I don't usually pay money for premium store stuff in games but Palia is very special to me so I bought coins like one time to get a disgustingly ugly pink dress and this pet. I love her, her name is Harper! You also get one pet with any Palia coin purchase, and 3 pets if you buy 3k coins. For a game that doesn't lock any core gameplay behind a paywall, only additional things like this, that's rare these days so I really want to support that so it can remain that way for much much longer. If I were to get another, I'd get the Spectral Bumble--

(ID: a blue bumblebee with a crown. end.)
---but I'm not spending any more money on this game, haha. I will support but can only do so much.

One thing I absolutely LOVE about Star Trek Online though is the Winter/Summer events, where you complete minigames and earn "favors" that you can turn in to Q for things like cool outfits and cosmetic pets. Now, the STO pets to me are MUCH cooler. I have the Rainbow Caracal,

(ID: a rainbow alien animal that resembles a cat with longer/plumper arms and ears and larger eyes. end.)

the Saint Bernard,

(ID: a saint bernard dog in the game star trek online. end.)


and the Jackal Mastiff (you get that one in the early stages of Klingon faction play, and it's a combat pet!).


(ID: a four legged alien beast resembling an earth boar with bigger claws and tusks and teeth. end.)

Also while making this post, I remembered Q's Winter event ended TODAY and I didn't get to play at all! And it sucks, because they got a new pet I would die for; starry deer!!!



(ID: a deer painted in stars. end.)

I also also found out that Romulus players can breed Epohhs??? I've always loved Epohhs :')



(ID: a four-legged green creature that looks like a lizard mixed with a frog that also has a prickly lion's mane type thing of fur around its neck. end.)

I love the wildlife and all the creatures in STO it is such a special game to me, and you can tell the design team really truly works hard at making unique and alien creatures for the game.

So yeah! This turned out to be more about video game pets I guess. I could go into more, like the Sims pets expansion packs I loved playing with as a kid, but I'm kinda tired, and also fantasy pets are much cooler anyway.